Winches find widespread use in various applications. One important and widespread area of use of winches today is for pulling in lines attached to sails and anchors on sailboats and other boats. However, winches find various other applications including use on recreational vehicles and in industrial applications.
In the past, winches were known to be operated manually by a winch handle or crank which drove the winch usually through gearing. More recently, applications of motors have been utilized to drive winches, such as electric motors. However, these suffer from various deficiencies including the fact that the winch is either full on or full off. In other words, by pressing a button or actuating a switch, the winch is on and would operate at full speed. By releasing the button or deactivating a switch, the winch would be turned completely off.
Recently, there has been a disclosure of a winch in which the speed of the winch could be varied by utilizing a direct current electric motor operated or controlled by a pulse width modulator and potentiometer. For example, see WO 02/24567 A1 which discloses a variable-speed drive assembly for a winch for a water vessel such as a yacht which includes an electric motor controlled by a pulse-width modulator and potentiometer.
However, none of the prior art provides a means wherein a winch may be manually operated with power assistance, thereby providing the operator with a “feel” of the force being applied to the line and the conditions of the line, sail, anchor or other load on the line.